Walmart retires more than 1,300 automated pickup towers and switches to curbside pickup

According to foreign media reports, retailer Walmart is phasing out the huge automatic pickup towers installed in more than 1,500 stores.

It is reported that these automatic pickup towers are used to distribute online orders. They act as vending machines for online orders, placing the items inside until they are picked up by shoppers.

Walmart has frequently highlighted the machines in recent years in presentations to the media and investors, saying they were designed to provide shoppers with a cheaper, faster way to fulfill online orders. But Walmart stopped using the aisle-roaming, inventory-tracking robots last year after it found that humans could perform the same tasks.

The decision to phase out the automated pickup towers also reflects Walmart's increasing focus on curbside pickup, which has become more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic, and continues its broader move away from some of the highly automated equipment used in its stores.

Over the past year, Walmart has begun removing or shutting down the 17-foot-tall machines that often sit at the front of stores. Larry Blue, chief executive of Bell & Howell, said about 300 machines have been removed from stores and about 1,300 have been put "dormant" while Walmart focuses on other services.

Bell & Howell, an automation services company based in Durham, North Carolina, installs and maintains the equipment for Walmart.

"Customers told us they want a pickup location, and they want it outside," a Walmart spokeswoman said.

Walmart has expanded its online grocery curbside pickup and home delivery business in recent years, especially during the pandemic, making the service more attractive to many shoppers. This includes both expanding the availability of the service and making more non-grocery products available for purchase.

Company executives decided that since shoppers could pick up a wider variety of products curbside or for delivery, it made less sense to offer multiple ways to pick up online orders in stores, according to people familiar with the matter.

Walmart

Curbside Pickup Service

Automatic pickup